


How To Crush

by Elleh



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: AU where Oikawa is the nerdy guy and Iwa is the Popular Guy, Bullying, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Nerd Oikawa, Oikawa Tooru is a Nerd, Popular Iwaizumi, mentions of bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:09:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7643929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleh/pseuds/Elleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Oikawa Tooru is the nerdy loner of school, with no friends and A Crush the size of China, while Iwaizumi Hajime, (The Crush) is the hot popular guy who's the Captain of the volleyball team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Crush

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, first of all, I spent all my Sunday writing this monster that has 14,000 words. How the fuck did I manage such a thing, I don't even know, but it happened, and here we are. 
> 
> Please, imagine Oikawa wearing his glasses 100% of the time unless is otherwise stated. 
> 
> This idea comes basically from [this art](http://ohmilk2015.tumblr.com/post/141889623225/ohmilk-ok-but-iwaoi-au-where-oikawa-is-the) because it's just perfect and it had been one of my AU headcanons since I first saw it some months ago. Oh Milk, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 
> 
> I'm pretty sure this is the cheesiest shit I've ever writen and probably the cheesiest I would ever write.
> 
> ps. I swear I have nothing against Terushima; I like him a lot but ugh it was the first name that came to mind…

_"Oikawa Tooru is great._

_And amazing. And smart. He's cooler than the average, he has power._

_Oikawa Tooru is magnificent."_

The mirror reflected his furrowed expression, not sure at all if the Oikawa Tooru from his other dimension had lost his damn mind or he was, plainly said, an idiot. 

"Oikawa Tooru _is magnificent_ ," he tried again, the magnificent word burning his tongue, the way lies sometimes felt in his mouth. Tooru knew it was a lie, but he was trying to (quoting directly from the book he had managed to buy without dying of embarrassment) Step 1: _Nourishing And Developing A Strong And Confident Character_. According to the book, one had to tell himself how fucking amazing he was even if that was the biggest lie ever said out loud.

The Tooru on the other side of the mirror had an evil look in his eyes, filled with: _you look specially stupid today_. Tooru wanted to scream. 

He picked the book again, that was standing on the edge of the sink, and buried his nose and his glasses into the pages. It was not working, but once again the book said: _You Need To Do This For At Least 21 Days Before You Start To Feel The Changes._

Bullshit, everything was bullshit. Tooru didn't have 21 days; in fact, Tooru lacked any kind of patience whatsoever. He had spent most of his life being no one, standing on the limits of society because he had a serious problem when people were involved. He had, what was commonly known as social anxiety. Tooru was perfectly able to stand in a crowd without a breath of panic, but if anyone dared to gaze at him or, _gods help him_ , tried to talk to him, Tooru's mind basically shut itself down and burned him in the deep pitches of embarrassing hell. 

Tooru had had this problem since Middle School, and it was probably related to the occasional bullying he had suffered due to his ability to be, well, smart, and his stupid mouth, that at that age had failed to have any kind of filter for his thoughts. The kids in his class hadn't liked that a smart tiny person expressed his opinions without any consideration for his less-smart-equals, and so he had suffered for it for a while. 

It got better when he got into High School, because he learned to make himself into a wall, just like a chameleon would do to avoid danger. It had worked perfectly fine the first six months, but at some point during his first year, his body had decided it was time to _grow_ and he had grown indeed. Taller and stronger than what he had expected —he should have seen it coming, though, he played an awful amount of hours each week—, _people_ had started to notice him. And then they had tried to speak to him; and then everything had started to go to shit once more, just like had happened in Middle School.

The bullies were less and it happened only once in a while, but the fact that people thought him an arrogant dandy full of shit because he wasn't able to speak freely with anyone had gained him a reputation he didn't want, or need. It would had been hilarious, if this was not Tooru's situation. He was the more insecure being out in this planet, but everyone around him thought he was so full of himself he couldn't even walk straight.

Ha, ha, ha. Tooru wanted to cry just thinking about it. 

Tooru prided himself for being a smart, intelligent person. He could see and understand better than the average, and so after the first awful months when his high school's society had turned their backs on him, Tooru had decided that he just needed to get through with it and he would finally find a friend once he got into college. 

What had made the change of heart, then? The most stupid thing that can happen to a person.

A crush. And not any crush, no. Tooru couldn't do things in the easy way, obviously, because he had a liking for pain and suffering. To be fair, it wasn't even his fault, because he was just being himself and letting the hate spill around him like always. He hadn't been looking for it, really; it just sort of… happened.

The fact that Tooru had had always a _friendship crush_ on Iwaizumi Hajime was another matter completely. I mean, every kid that lived on the outside world of society craved to be friends with the popular guy in school. It was human nature, really. The crush, though. The crush was just unfair. 

It happened like this, because Tooru, besides being an _idiot_ and stupid as _shit_ , couldn't even get himself out of the stereotype: some guys had been teasing Tooru, nothing new; he had tripped over and the papers he was taking to the teacher's room had fallen around him, like white birds announcing the beginning of love (how cheesy, but how _true_ ). He had been on his knees, glasses so far away in his nose he had problems seeing properly, and then there he was. Like a knight to the rescue of his King (the book specifically said he had to take proper care of his self-esteem, okay?), and just like that Tooru's friendship crush had evolved into the Biggest Love Crush A Person Had Ever Felt In Life And Death. 

That was two months ago, and during that time Iwaizumi had come and helped him three more times, never judging, always smiling, and even more, with all the hate Tooru was used to see in other people's eyes nowhere to be seen. Maybe that was one of the multiple reasons Tooru and His Crush had started to lose their minds over Iwaizumi, but who could blame him. Tooru had a lovely family and he liked himself for what he was, but after years yearning for a friend, of hearing how low his value was as a person, his soul might have been a bit wounded.

 _Really_ wounded. 

And now here he was, trying to overcome his fear of human beings (high scholar human beings) because he had made a bet with his sister and he had lost. (He hated to lose more than what anyone could really imagine, but Tooru had never been a cheater and even if this socializing experiment was doom to tragedy, he was going to try anyway, because he had promised). 

He had two weeks to make a friend in school or he will have to babysit his sister's kids until he turned thirty. I mean, Tooru loved Takeru and he would love every nephew or niece his sister had a good to give him, but. Tooru planned to have a life in all those years between now and then. 

And so…

"Oikawa Tooru, you are mag—"

"What are you doing," Tooru shrieked and turned around, his eyes wide open. Takeru, the small devil, was watching him from the darkness of the corridor with a frown in his face and an ice-cream in his hand.

"No—nothing," Tooru cleared his throat. "You shouldn't be eating ice cream before going to sleep."

Takeru licked the yellow iced candy and arched his eyebrows, making Tooru's guts twist. 

"I won't tell if you don't." Damn kid, and his sister expected him to babysit the demon until he was thirty?

No, no. He was going to make a friend and then his sister would have to—

 _Oh_ , he thought when he realized he couldn't finish that sentence. He was so sure he was going to lose this bet too he didn't even come up with a punishment for her.

"Fine," Tooru said, clicking his tongue. "Do whatever you please, but if you can't come with me tomorrow, don't complain."

"Ice-cream has nothing to do with volleyball," the small demon said, licking the damn thing again. Tooru had to breath deep before he answered.

"Having a balanced and healthy diet is as important as practicing everyday."

"The same way as having nice sleep habits?"

Really, was this kid even from this realm or this planet? Tooru had to wonder how he had come out such a trickster, but once again he was his sister's son, so that explained it all. 

" _I_ am allowed to do as I please in that regard because _I am_ who I am, do you get it?"

Takeru licked the ice cream again and Tooru had to hold his hand before it moved on its own and snapped the damn thing away from the kid.

"Oikawa Tooru, the Magnificent?"

This was it, the end of Tooru's life as he had lived it so far. He was going to murder Takeru and then he would end up in jail, but it was going to be worth it because, damn kid. "You little—"

"Takeru! What did I tell you about ice-creams before going to sleep?!"

Tooru saw all the potential in Takeru's small legs when the kid sprinted away from the bathroom's door and through the yard, Tooru's sister's steps pounding on the house like Godzilla preparing itself to destroy Tokyo. 

When she got to the bathroom level, though, she stopped and watched her little brother for a second, that full-of-tenderness-but-more-filled-with-malice smile she had developed specially for him plastered in her face. "Everything good?" her tone made Tooru growl.

"Your son is Satan incarnated."

"Just like his uncle."

"Get out," he snapped, making her laugh while she followed his order and her son outside.

Tooru sighed deeply and turned to face the mirror once again, the screams of Takeru and his sister loud from the back of the house. The Tooru on the mirror hadn't changed his expression, those brown eyes so clearly telling Tooru what he _really_ was and what he _would never_ be; he had to swallow to avoid the acid from his stomach. 

Tooru _needed_ to make a friend. Because he hated to lose, but more than anything, because if he stayed like this for a bit longer he would literally lose his mind. 

And maybe something else. 

 

 

Monday came and Tooru was _ready_ for it. He was going to _rock it_ , he was Oikawa Tooru the Magnificent, The King Of The Court, The Master Of Losers (Takeru had spent all weekend calling him that and as much as it pained Tooru, it was funny and mostly true, sarcasm and irony applied to the right ones). He was The High Level Of Royalty, that's what the tenth chapter of the book had told Tooru Saturday's night. He had finished reading it the same Friday he had bought it, and in the two days after that he had reread it and analyzed it ten times. 

Really tough and hopeless _ten times_. Tooru had hoped that the book would bring him instant knowledge and instant power, but he was _wrong_. In fact, even after ten readings he didn't even had managed to _grasp_ a full 10% of what the book was trying to tell him, and so he now found himself with a series of stupid nicknames, a weekend deprived of sleep, a new bruise in his arm because he was spacing out in practice yesterday and a mind full of shit he couldn't even use.

It was just his luck, then, that he had to crash with The Crush precisely _today_. He was Ready but not That Ready. 

Tooru would refer to this day in future reference as the day The King Died Of Embarrassment Forever, because he didn't even tried to avoid the ground when it smashed against his face. He hadn't seen what he had tripod over, but what he saw —or managed to get out of the blur that was his vision— was that his glasses had been destroyed by the same ground that had almost broken his nose, and completely annihilated his dignity. 

"Oh, great," he murmured softly. He had enough sight left without the glasses to appreciate colors and forms, but he wasn't going to be able to survive all his classes without them. 

"What did you say?" Tooru flinched and blinked, unsure if the question was for him or not. When someone kicked him on the side, making him growl, he understood it was. "I asked you, what the hell did you say?"

"Fuck off, Terushima," Iwaizumi's voice said then, stepping between them both. "You tripped him."

"I didn't."

"I saw it," insisted Iwaizumi, and Tooru wanted to melt into the background, into the wall, into the ground that seemed to love him so much. "Do you want me to let a teacher know?"

"Fuck off," Terushima said again, because that was the length his vocabulary had and for a second Oikawa found himself smiling with wry. "What are you laug—˝

"Get out, Terushima."

Terushima left. Oikawa would be amazed by Iwaizumi's power over bullies if his heart wasn't trying to win the most awful and useless race against itself. Tooru's ears stopped functioning for a second, his blood rushing so strongly in his veins he lost contact with reality for a scaring moment. 

"Are you okay?" Iwaizumi asked Tooru and Tooru had to bit his lips to avoid an hysterical laugh getting through them. He more or less managed to nod, a weird movement of his head, and started to grab his stuff and the pieces of his glasses. "Oh, your glasses broke."

"Yes," Tooru's amazingly sharp answer escaping his body before he could even control himself.

"Do you have another pair?"

Tooru would have laughed at Iwaizumi's concerned question if he wasn't _blushing so damn much, Oh my God Tooru, get your shit together._

No luck getting any shit together today, it seemed.

"Here, let me help you stand—˝

"No! I'm fine!" Tooru managed to stand even when his legs were trembling as if they were made of thin wood. "Thank you for your concern! Bye!" Tooru The Magnificent flew away in the most astonishing and unforgettable way one could ever imagine, because when he was about to turn around the corner, his shoulder completely crashed with it and made his first fan The Floor find his way against him again.

If he wasn't ashamed already, the soft laughter that Iwaizumi was too slow to contain made his insides twist until he was a knot of nervousness and blushes and The Biggest Need To Make A Hole Into The Ground And Disappear. Tooru didn't bother to stand up this time, his back pressed against the cold floor, his unfocused eyes glued to a ceiling he was unable to figure out at all. He let himself stay there like the big attraction he was doomed to be, and he just regretted his existence.

It was a short, full of amazingly awful moments to think about. Tooru wondered what kind of bitchy thing he might have done at some point in his life to end up here, his body smashed against the ground, his heart destroyed because _he just couldn't avoid to make himself look like a total loser in front of The Crush._

Life was utterly unfair, and he hated it.

"Hey, ahm, Oikawa-kun?" Oikawa was dead, and so Tooru didn't answer, because the dead couldn't speak. "Are you okay? You hit your shoulder—" Iwaizumi coughed, but Tooru heard the smile in his words nonetheless. "—pretty bad. Do you need to go to the infirmary?"

The dead couldn't speak, but Tooru wasn't even able to follow the rules of death and so he found himself answering, (one just wouldn't ignore The Crush for a slightly shameful accident now, would they?). 

"No."

"Are you sure? I think you hit—"

Could Tooru say something more than monosyllabic words? The answer was…

"No."

Iwaizumi didn't say anything for a short second, the blur of his silhouette watching Tooru from the privileged position that standing gave to a person. Although Tooru could make out the outline of his form and the stains of his dark hair and his eyes and his lips, it was hard to read his expression without his glasses. Tooru kept his eyes on the ceiling, because otherwise he knew he would end up looking —or trying, anyway— at Iwaizumi's face and really, did he need to make himself look even worse than what he had managed already?

"Are you planning to stay laying there all day?"

The answer was: YES, because that was what Iwaizumi turned Tooru into: a fucking Monosyllabic Idiot. _There you go, another beautiful nickname to add to the list._

"Look, I— I didn't mean to laugh, really. It was just— Well."

Oh, no. Tooru got it. It was funny to be on the other side, when everyone loved you, where you could fall and laugh it off because you had that kind of power, that kind of security in your own self. Iwaizumi didn't need to explain, because Tooru _knew_. He had spent his entire life trying to be in his spot, trying to be able to fall and not be ashamed by it; trying to get on his feet again no matter the pain and no matter the cost. 

It hurt a bit, in a secret part inside Tooru's chest, to realize that The Crush, that he had managed to elevate into this Perfect And Impossible Being, was not up to the standard. It wasn't Iwaizumi's fault that he couldn't understand Tooru's situation. In fact, a part of Tooru was glad that he couldn't, because it meant Iwaizumi had never found himself in such an awful position. But—

But. Another big part of Tooru, the wounded one, the yearning one, the needy one. Well, that part had been famish for so long it was just too much to handle, all those _what could have been and will never be._

Tooru sighed and didn't answer, a part of his heart lost on the ground after so many hits. He stood slower now, he picked up his things and he left, because he didn't want to face The Crush, that was only a Human and that couldn't see through his pain. Iwaizumi didn't stop him nor did he say anything else, and that night not only did Tooru mourn his hurted pride, but also his broken heart. 

 

By the end of that week not only did Tooru not have any friends, but he had managed to make _an enemy_.

An enemy, for god's sake. Tooru's plan, that consisted basically in: Love Yourself And Find A Friend, had turned into: Hate Yourself More And Say Hi To Your Nemesis. His luck was the most rare, special shit he had ever had the misfortune to encounter and he didn't even know how he had managed such an amazing feat.

Terushima hated his guts, for some reason Tooru wasn't able to grasp. The tripping became occasional fits colliding against his bones, and by the end of the week Tooru had heard so many times how low his value as a person was, he was almost dizzy.

He wanted to punch something, mostly Terushima, but basically himself, because he was going to end up with a lot of bruises, thirteen years of babysitting devils and no one with whom to complain. 

Which, translated in human language meant that Tooru was feeling lonelier than ever and more hurt than ever, and _please, gods, can't anything go in my favor for once?_

Short answer: no.

"What, you don't have anything to say today either, do you?" A _fuck you_ was on the menu, but Tooru didn't want to engage in any kind of fighting so he didn't say anything at all. He tried to straighten himself after Terushima's fist found his way into his stomach, but it still hurt too much to do so. He let the wall behind him hold his weight for some more minutes, waiting for the pain to fade away. "I'm talking to you, little shit."

"And it's obvious that he's ignoring you, Terushit," Tooru tried to breath in, but his lungs were burning and his eyes were blurry, so he couldn't really see who had just spoken.

"Do you need something?"

"I need him," Tooru assumed he was the _him_.

"He's busy right now, don't you see it?"

"Oh, no, he's not." Terushima didn't move away, but even Tooru, that was almost blind, could see the threat in the other's voice.

"I can fight you, Hanamaki."

"Oh, you can try. But—" the sound of steps approaching was loud in the following silence. "Can you fight the both of us?"

Terushima must have seen the odds were not in his favor, because he clicked his tongue before looking at Tooru once more. 

"You've been saved now, but this is not over."

"Oh, I believe it is," Hanamaki said and Tooru couldn't help but wonder what the fuck was going on and why would anyone bother helping him. "Now, leave before me and Matsukawa decide we actually want a fight."

"I know perfectly well that the sports members can't get themselves into fights," Terushima pushed the issue.

"Wanna bet?"

He didn't want to bet. Terushima left without another word and Tooru let himself fall into the ground with a soundly growl. His gaze was glued between his legs, in the shinny and green grass of the yard. His stomach hurt like hell, and for a second he panicked, because he didn't want to miss practice today or tomorrow. 

"Hey, are you alright?" Tooru blinked and lift his eyes, surprised to see them still there. 

"I'm fine," his voice sounded like the hounds of hell. 

"Well, fine guy, let's get you inside so we can check your bruises."

"I'm fine," he said again, because Tooru was not good with people and because he had just been hit, and really, he knew his luck well enough by now as to trust anything that looked remotely good.

"If you don't come on your own," said the other guy, Matsukawa, with a deep voice, "I will have to carry you like a princess. Your choice."

Hanamaki let out a sharp sound. "Can you do that to me?"

"If you pay ramen I can, given that your dignity was lost long ago."

"Who needs dignity if I can be a princess?"

"That's what I'm here for."

Tooru heard their words and he _envied_ them, the bitter venom of jealousy destroying his already beaten stomach. That was what he had been looking for all his life, a kindred-soul, a brother that, by free will, decided to make Tooru his equal. It was a pain worse than Terushima's fists and Tooru couldn't help the grimace that took over his face.

"Come on," Matsukawa said then, kneeling in front of Tooru. "Can you stand? Here, put your arm—"

Tooru wanted to argue, but he was tired and he was sad and so he gave in, because what else was there to lose? He let Matsukawa put Tooru's right arm around his shoulder, and helped Tooru stand slowly. They took him into the infirmary and they stayed there, chatting about the most stupid topics Tooru had ever heard until the bell rang. 

It was a nice moment. For some minutes Tooru had the privilege to see what real friendship looked like, and although he wasn't an active part of the conversation, he felt how Matsukawa and Hanamaki included him in every stupid statement, in every weird turn their words took. 

It was nice, but hell. Tooru wasn't sure if it was better to know what he was missing or if ignorance would have been a wiser choice after all.

 

Tooru was able to go to practice on Saturday. He had some pain left, but nothing he hadn't managed before. What he did had that was new was an amazingly huge ugly bruise in the middle of his thorax the color of a dead body. How many dead bodies had Tooru seen in his life, not one in reality but countless in movies, so he _knew_. It wasn't as bad as he had thought at first, but it looked awful and so he had to change hiding himself because he didn't want any of his teammates to notice it or worry about it.

Because of his social anxiety (that basically existed in school's grounds), Tooru hadn't been able to join the Volleyball club in school. He tried in Middle School, but after some of the worst cases of bullying happened there, he just quit. He didn't bother to try again once he got into High School, and anyway by that time he already had a strong connection with his neighborhood's team. 

They weren't the best out there, and maybe Tooru's ability was being wasted here, but he didn't care. He had enough freedom to play as he wanted, he trusted his team mates and he _loved volleyball_. It was the only space in Earth where he felt invincible, even when they lose, even when everything seemed hopeless. 

Oikawa Tooru was a completely different person when he was on the court, and maybe that was why he didn't want to let that world collide with the Tooru he was outside of it.

They had a practice match in an hour, and so all of them started their warm-ups faster than usual. If anyone noticed how stiffed Tooru's movements were in some of the exercises, no one said anything, but once again, Tooru's level was higher than all of theirs, so maybe they couldn't even see a difference.

The match was fun, but the other team had gathered together roughly six months ago, and so they had a lot of holes. Tooru, because that was what he was there for, found them all and smashed them one by one. It wasn't one of the most defensive matches he had played, but it was fun and after the win, he felt the joy and the rush of it enlightening his veins and making his soul a bit lighter.

Ah, he loved volleyball.

 

Monday came again, and Tooru faced it with the words his sister just had given him when he was heading out engraved in his brain: _You only have a week left._ Well, that was what happened when one made a deal with the Devil. He always came back for his pay. Or hers, in this case. 

Tooru still wanted a friend, but his tries had proven themselves futile, so he didn't bother worrying about it when he changed his shoes at the entrance and headed to the classroom. He was walking the softer he could manage, trying to avoid anyone noticing him. But.

But, ah, his luck. Why was his luck so _damn awful?_

"Good morning, princess," a voice said right into his ear, making Tooru jump and turn around fast and scared. Matsukawa stopped his movements when he put his arm around his shoulders, imprisoning him with his surprisingly strong muscles. Tooru didn't answer, but there was no need for him to do so, because Hanamaki appeared besides him the next second and Tooru found himself surrounded.

"Good morning to you too, princess," answered Hanamaki, and Tooru was a bit lost for a second. "Have you seen this tall and amazingly weird guy with glasses? I've been calling him for ages now, but I guess he's just not here."

"Hum," Matsukawa said, dragging Tooru forward with the strength of his body, making them walk down the corridor as the most normal thing. "Now that you say that, I've seen a guy that doesn't wear glasses, but is tall as shit and guess what?"

Hanamaki lowered himself a bit, getting closer to Tooru and Matsukawa. "What," he whispered.

"He plays volleyball too," Matsukawa's words were soft and low, but they hit Tooru harder than Terushima's fists.

He stopped his feet, making the other two stop with him. Tooru could feel the panic rising inside him, crawling, making his stomach burn with nausea. He felt the sweat break through his skin, and if he was already naturally pale, he knew he looked like a ghost just then.

"Whoa, whoa, Oikawa, are you okay? We were just teasing—" Hanamaki's words didn't really process into Tooru's brain. Matsukawa was faster than his friend, and took Tooru's arm with a hand and dragged them both to an empty bathroom. Tooru should have felt fear about it, —the known setting, the inevitability of hate showing itself through awful actions,— but there was another fear taking control of him and so he didn't even notice.

"Hey, Oikawa, it was just a joke—" Matsukawa gazed Hanamaki in a silent conversation. "I mean, we know that you play volleyball but we are not going to tell anyone else."

"How— how do you know?" he managed to ask, magically, through the mist of his brain.

"We saw your match on Saturday. My brother plays for the other team. You destroyed them," there it came, the prelude of the blows. Tooru almost choked on the silence that comes before the storm, but when the storm didn't hit, he couldn't even understand what was going on anymore. "It was awesome."

Hanamaki was nodding beside him. "You are awesome. We didn't know you could play, less that you could play _like that._ "

"How long have you being playing?"

Tooru knew what they were trying to do, and for his utter surprise, it worked. Volleyball was his safe place, after all, and so after some more seconds of deep breathing, his panic attack just fell into an end.

"Years," he just said, because even if they had calmed him down, Tooru still didn't know what Hanamaki and Matsukawa wanted.

"Years? But—" Hanamaki frowned.

"You never thought of getting into the volley club? You know we are—"

"No," Tooru said, cuttingly, not letting Matsukawa finish that sentence.

They stayed silent then and Tooru didn't know what to do with himself, them and this. He wasn't used to this, to conversation, to other boys of his age _talking_ with him instead of _harassing_ him.

He didn't even know if he liked it. 

"Ok then. I think it's time to go to class," Hanamaki said then. "It's weird enough that three guys get into an empty bathroom."

"It's just like one of my fantasies."

"What, three guys in a bathroom?"

"Yeah, and doing it at school. The danger, you know?"

"You are gross."

"So true."

Tooru followed them outside and said nothing.

 

  
Tooru thought himself smart and enlightened by the gods of wisdom, but he was _wrong_. (He was always wrong lately, but who cares, Tooru was not going to start acknowledging it now after all this time). After the bathroom incident, Tooru had decided to put all his will into following the book's advice. He told himself he was _magnificent_ (Tooru The Magnificent strikes again), he made a list with all his _qualities_ and all his flaws, and then turned his flaws into qualities. Amazingly hard and, by the end of it, amazingly useless. Tooru was a bit sick of his own inability to change his own mindset, but hey, at least he was trying.

He also had decided _socializing_ was not his thing, so he was going to stop trying completely. Unfortunately for him, Tuesday found him with Matsukawa and Hanamaki excitedly talking about some movie Tooru knew nothing about and they had forced Tooru into the conversation, just like that. After ten minutes, Tooru had sworn he was going to watch it that night to make a full review next day, and promised to help them study all the classes they didn't understand. _We can do both while we eat at your place_ , Hanamaki had said, and while Matsukawa nodded in agreement Tooru found he couldn't deny any of it.

So here he was now, Wednesday afternoon, in his living room with two classmates, _studying_. Tooru thought himself smart enough to see shit coming, but he wouldn't have seen _this_ coming even if he had been high on drugs. 

"Now, what did you thought about the moment—" Matsukawa asked with his plain and serious tone that Tooru had learned fast to read as his excited mode.

"It was a beautifully bad movie," he said, cutting Matsukawa and making Hanamaki end up laughing on the floor.

"Yeah, yeah, tell him so he can start to see the _truth_."

"What truth? That you are both ignorants that can't appreciate real cinematographic art?" Hanamaki's laugh was piercing and endearing. Tooru had to hide a smile while he put in order his notebooks. "Iwaizumi agrees with me," Matsukawa said and Tooru felt his heart skip a beat.

"Iwaizumi's tastes are as bad as yours." Hanamaki stood up then, and before Tooru could notice it, he was beside him, his arm around Tooru's shoulders. "Oikawa thinks the same I do, which proofs I'm in the right here."

"Just because he's smart doesn't mean he understands art."

"No, _you_ don't understand art." Tooru coughed a laugh and found himself being the target of two intense gazes.

"Did he just laugh?"

"No I didn't," Tooru said with a frown.

"He did!" Hanamaki's arms found their way around Tooru, taking his breath away with the sudden charge against his persona. "Our baby is growing up."

"Gross," he said softly, making Matsukawa laugh. "I didn't laugh, and even if I did I would let you know I do laugh. A lot. Just not in front of other people."

Now they were both laughing at him, rolling into the tatami like they had lost the control of their bodies. Tooru felt the tight in his stomach for a second, the shame that made him nauseous, but after a beat, he was smiling despite himself, and after another moment, with their laugh into his ears, the knot in his stomach became a warm wave of fondness. 

"Do you wanna study or not?" Tooru asked after some minutes filled with laughs and tears.

"Yeah, let's do that," Matsukawa agreed.

They spent an hour going through maths and english, Hanamaki's and Matsukawa's worst subjects respectively. They were pretty good, actually, what surprised Tooru since they were athletes and, well, they had asked for his help.

"Why?" he said after a long silence, while they were doing their exercises. It just came out like that, the filter Tooru had forced himself to build all these years broken in a single afternoon of companionship. 

"Why what?" Hanamaki asked without taking his eyes away from his paper.

"Why did you ask me to help you? You are both good enough without—"

"Well, that's what friends do, isn't it? Study together, share the knowledge—" Matsukawa said, arching his eyebrows in an awesome game Tooru couldn't but be impressed by.

Or he would be, in some future where his lungs are functioning and his brain isn't destroyed by the most utter happiness he has ever felt. How stupid of him, to feel like he had just seen the moon come out after an eternal night. 

"Holy shi— Are you crying?" Hanamaki stood up, his hands in a defensive position.

"No, I'm not."

"Dude, you have snot running down your nose."

"Shut up! I'm not crying," Tooru said while he sniffed soundly. "Go get me a damn tissue, Makki," he said with anger and for a second the panic came again, because he had just let his tongue run free, but when Matsukawa's lips curved into a smile and Hanamaki's eyes opened in amused surprise, Tooru felt safe.

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

It was a beautiful day.

 

 

Tooru found himself spending an awful amount of time thinking about why Mattsun and Makki had decided to approach him. He wasn't going to ask openly, because he didn't feel sure enough about the state of their friendship yet, but gods, _how he craved to know_. He knew there had been something else besides pure hearted intention behind their intervention that day when Terushima was beating him up, but he couldn't quite see what it was.

His school time became a full bag of Hanamaki and Matsukawa. When one of them couldn't make it for lunch, the other would tag along in Tooru's class and they would eat together. When none of them could spend time with Tooru because of practice or whatever other reason, they would made the big fuss about it on the LINE group they had with Tooru. 

If Tooru had been out of his happy bubble he would have noticed other things; obvious things. The fact that Mattsun and Makki were on the volley club, or the fact that before they started to hang out with Tooru they always hung out with Iwaizumi, whom Tooru had been trying to not think about for the last two weeks for obvious _heart—related_ reasons. 

He should have known it, though. Because that was his luck after all.

 

Sunday came and his volleyball practice got cancelled because half of the players had caught the flu. Tooru spent his morning with a pout in his lips even after eight kilometers of run and delicious pancakes he had rewarded himself with. He couldn't help but to feel disappointed, and so when Mattsun wrote a short: _yo_ , in the group, Tooru couldn't control the impulse.

**Oikara Tooru:** _let's go play volleyball_

**Matsukawa Issei:** _what? now?_

**Oikara Tooru:** _yes!!!! NOOOOW!!!_

**Hanamaki Takahiro:** _duuuuude, i still need to get out of the bed_

**Oikara Tooru:** _pleAAASE! my practice has been cancelled im going craaaazy_

**Matsukawa Issei:** _i could be in but what r we gonna do with three persons_

**Hanamaki Takahiro:** _ok im gonna find a fourth player and let's meet in the school gym???? i still have the key_

**Matsukawa Issei:** _y the fuck do u still have the key, Hanamaki_

**Hanamaki Takahiro:** _lol i forgot to give it back yesterday after practice_

**Matsukawa Issei:** _r u for real. u r so busted u know that right_

**Hanamaki Takahiro:** _whatever, in two hours lets meet at school losers_

**Matsukawa Issei:** _u r the only loser here, loser_

**Hanamaki Takahiro:** _i love u tooo_

 

Tooru sat on the stairs of the gym waiting for his friends. He was early or they were late. Maybe both, but Tooru didn't mind waiting that much. The sun was awfully shinny today, though, so he found himself growling at it in more than one occasion.

"Oikawa Tooru The Magnificent hates you," he told the sun with disdain.

"Wow, is that how you call yourself now?" Tooru turned around faster than the speed of light, his cheeks blushed in a stunning warm red. Matsukawa was smiling at him and Tooru _knew_ he was never going to let it go.

"No," he lied, because if they got into the business of nicknames Tooru would end up being a joke instead of a person.

" _Oikawa Tooru, The Magnificent_ , superhero at night, loser by day," it was so accurate (not the superhero part but whatever) that Tooru found himself grimacing in dull pain. 

Matsukawa must had seen it too, because his teasing expression got serious in a beat. "I didn't mean that, you know it, right?"

"I know it," Tooru said, softly. He knew it was a joke, but they had never been real losers or thought they were, and so they couldn't really see the pain it caused. "It's just— you know, it's just."

Not the best explanation, but Matsukawa seemed to comprehend.

"I mean, you are a bit of a loser, but aren't we all? I like crappy movies, you like aliens, Hanamaki likes m—"

"We are here!" Matsukawa and Tooru watched him race toward them, with the key in his hands and a big smile in his face. 

"Yo," Matsukawa said with a smug in his face. "Where's Iwaizumi?"

Tooru didn't have time to process what that meant because—

"Here," he appeared behind Hanamaki, his tanned skin a bit flustered for the run. He didn't even blink before he hit Hanamaki on the head with his hand. 

"That hurt!"

"Yeah? The scolding because you forgot to bring back the key hurt me as well so, we are even."

"Come on, Captain! It was a small accident done without any evil intention—˝ Hanamaki smirked at Iwaizumi and Tooru had to give him credit, because he wouldn't even dare to look Iwaizumi in the eyes with the murderous gaze he was wearing.

"Keep talking and die."

"Yes sir."

They got inside. Tooru hadn't said anything yet, his nervousness playing against him once again. He had grown used to Mattsun and Makki's company, but Iwaizumi was another matter completely. Not only The Crush issue was there, but he still remembered the last time they spoke (or Iwaizumi spoke to him and Tooru had become a one—word—per—sentence robot). It made him feel edgy, because he didn't know how he was supposed to act now. Was it enough to be Oikawa Tooru, the prodigy and the loser he was around Mattsun and Makki or did he need to act like he had acted around everyone else all these years.

"How are we doing this?" Iwaizumi said, his hands in his hips, all captain-like. He was shorter than the three of them, but he had The Character, that kind of emotional trait that made him a natural leader. Tooru didn't answer, because he wasn't sure if he was allowed to.

"Oikawa?" Matsukawa said, because _no, they couldn't let him be on the sides of reality._ Tooru locked his gaze with Matsukawa's and saw in his dark eyes all the reassurance he needed. "You are a setter, right?"

"Yes," here we go, _the monosyllabic monster strikes again_. "I can play in other positions," he forced to continue, "but given that Makki and Iwaizumi are spikers and Mattsun is a middle blocker…?"

It came out as a broken question, but really. Tooru _was_ Volleyball, he knew only looking at them and the way they moved around the court where they felt more comfortable. He was one hundred percent sure what their positions were with a single look and even with that knowledge he still had problems saying his opinion out loud. 

"Wow, have you ever watched us play?" Hanamaki asked, a ball in his hands. 

Tooru shook his head. "No. But I just—know."

Hanamaki turned around and looked at his captain with his eyebrows risen like a proud father. Iwaizumi was watching Tooru with that intense way he had and for the first time Tooru met his eyes half way. He might or might not have had a small trembling problem with his hands after some seconds, but he kept himself strong and let Iwaizumi study him without hiding himself away.

"Your match against Matsukawa's brother's team was amazing," Tooru's stomach did a flip flop and fell to the ground. "You are by far one of the best setters I've ever seen. Why don't you play in school?"

"Well, Captain, isn't that too straight forw—"

"It's a valid question," Tooru guessed it was, but it also had an obvious answer. Iwaizumi had to be smart enough to know _it_ , and Tooru wondered why was he forcing Tooru to say it out loud.

"Why do you care? I'm happy where I am."

"Running away won't make you stronger."

"I don't recall saying I wanted to be stronger," Tooru said, low and slowly. He knew what was happening inside his chest, the burning sensation filling his lungs and his throat and his _mind_. 

Iwaizumi crossed his arms in front of his chest, his body language telling Tooru loud and clear Iwaizumi was not planning to go easy on him. 

"What do you want, then? Be the kid that lets others destroy him? That waits for a savior to come to the rescue?"

It was unfair. It was _so_ unfair. He didn't know shit, The Crush crushing Tooru's heart and Tooru's hopes like they were nothing because Tooru had made the mistake of putting in him too much faith, and now reality had decided to take the blindfold away. 

"Well, Iwaizumi-san, sorry to not be up to your standards," his words were an echo inverted of what Tooru was feeling towards Iwaizumi. "But life is not the same for those of us who lack social status or any confidence at all."

"I've seen you playing volleyball, Oikawa; don't expect me to believe that shit."

That stopped Tooru's anger for a second. "That's different."

"What is? Volleyball? Are you gonna say the one who was in that court is another person?"

"Iwaizumi—" Matsukawa said with worry.

"Yes! It obviously is! The Oikawa Tooru that plays volleyball has nothing in common with the Oikawa Tooru that doesn't!"

"But that's not true," that was Hanamaki's voice, so soft Tooru almost missed it. Eyes wide open with betrayal, Tooru turned around to face him. "You are more like the one in the court when you are with Matsukawa and me than what you were before."

That just meant that Tooru had needed a friendly hand to feel safer being what he really was. It had nothing to do with strength or smashing things, it was not even related to the damn book and its hundred steps to get one's confidence built. The only thing that Tooru had always wanted was a friend, and when they came, he had been freed.

He said nothing. He just turned around and left.

"Shit, Iwaizumi couldn't you—"

That was the last thing Tooru heard before he started to run away from them and away from himself.

 

Tooru ran a lot. He ran to the temple up into the mountain and then back down; he ran to the conbini store, bought himself two bottles of energy drinks, and started to ran in the opposite direction. By the time he felt exhausted enough to sleep a lifetime, the sun was almost gone and the sky was orange and dark blue. 

There were stars shinning in the sky when he arrived home and he was so spaced out he didn't even see Iwaizumi's sitting form until he almost walked over him. 

"I've been waiting here for hours," he growled with a frown in his face. Tooru was unable to speak. "Where the heck were you? Are you aware what time it is?"

"Yes, mom, I'm aware of my surroundings," he said with irony, too tired to even bother pretending he wasn't pissed or hurt. "Now, if you could let me go through; I need a shower."

"I need to talk to you first," Iwaizumi stood up, but didn't let Tooru pass through. Tooru sighed with frustration.

"I've been running for hours. You know how much I've sweated? Let me give you a hint: a lot."

"Okay then," Iwaizumi said without changing the tone of his voice. "I will wait in your room while you shower."

"Look, we can talk tomorrow at—"

"I'm not leaving until I talk with you."

"Gods, whatever, do as you please."

Tooru entered, Iwaizumi following him in silence. "You wait here, don't do anything weird," Tooru said before he grabbed his stuff and went to the bathroom. It was the shortest shower he had ever taken and in eight minutes he was back into his room, Iwaizumi weirdly standing in the same position Tooru had left him. 

"You've been looking around, haven't you?" Tooru lost his breath (just a _bit of it okay?_ ) when he saw the warmth of shame painting Iwaizumi's cheeks in a clear answer. "Have you discovered anything else that makes you despise me?" it hurt like a stab to say those words out loud. 

Iwaizumi frowned. "I don't despise you. Why would you think that?"

Tooru's opinion of Iwaizumi's intelligence changed a bit with that answer (a lot). "Really?"

"Look, I don't despise you, okay? What happened today at the gym—" he hold the back of his neck with his hand and sighed. "I was out of line and I'm sorry. I thought we could all play volleyball for a bit and then go grab ramen and get to know each other?" he sighed again and looked Tooru in the eyes. "But then you just stood there, quiet and silent like a fucking puppet, and I snapped."

"That explanation doesn't explain shit, are you aware of that?"

"Ugh! Give me a break!" Iwaizumi let himself fall into the bed and hid his face with his arms. "You hated me first."

"What," Tooru, that was heading to put his things back in place, stopped mid step and looked at Iwaizumi in awe. "Are you out of your mind? How did you come to that conclusion?"

"That day when Terushima tripped you and then you— ah, sort of ate the corner, do you remember?" who could forget The Most Embarrassing Moment In Front Of The Crush. "You left so mad…"

"I was not mad, I was just—" Tooru couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence because it would give away too much. He had more or less gotten over The Crush (ha, ha, ha, who was he trying to lie to), and so he was going to avoid the topic the most he could. "It's not nice when other's make fun of you."

"I wasn't making fun of you," Iwaizumi sat again so he could face Tooru properly.

"I know you weren't," Tooru's voice was so soft, it even hurt himself. "But… I'm not you. I don't know how to laugh at myself."

"That's not what Matsukawa and Hanamaki say, though," Iwaizumi must have realized he just let something spill out there, because he blushed again.

Tooru took some seconds before he spoke again. "You didn't need to send them into my rescue, you know? I would have been fine without your intervention."

Iwazumi's eyes opened in surprise. "You knew?"

"I guessed as much while I was running today," it had been quite hard to swallow, the idea that his first friends never intended to be his friends at all. But Tooru had to be realistic here and he hadn't tried to hide or run away from that truth. "You wanted to do something, thought I hated you, and then you sent your knights to fight and protect me. Just like the fragile thing you think I am."

"That's not… completely true," Iwaizumi sighed deeply. "Ahh, I might have said that Terushima was crossing the line, and I might have suggested you needed more help than what I could provide, but everything else was their doing. When we went to the match, they kind of fell in love with you. The rest had nothing to do with me."

It was nice to hear and hard to believe, but Tooru believed it anyway, because he might have fallen in love with Mattsun and Makki as well, and let's face it, he would rather lie to himself at this point than go back to the solo life he had had before. 

"That's nice of you to say," Tooru whispered. "And I guess it was also nice of you to do? But I never— I really never expected to be _saved_." Tooru couldn't hold Iwaizumi's gaze, so he focused on the shirt he still had in his hands. "I was perfectly fine with it. I mean, obviously not? But I would have managed. I don't need saving."

"Yeah," Iwaizumi said in a whisper that matched Tooru's. "I guess I'm a prick for saying the opposite. It just— It really bothered me, ya' know? That you were always the target and that you never—. You never seemed bothered by it. You just let it go, you didn't get mad or fight, you didn't do anything. It made me a bit—frustrated."

The _why_ hung in Tooru's lips, but he kept it there, not really sure if he was ready to know the answer to it. 

"So, now that we made clear I don't despise you and that you don't hate me," Iwaizumi cleared his throat. "Friends?"

It was going to be so difficult to let The Crush fell from his pedestal, but Tooru was lost anyway. "Friends."

 

 

High School's life was completely different with _friends_. It was weird, at first. They started to hang out, the four of them, and soon enough people started to _notice_ , and Tooru went back to old habits. He would panic and stay silent or blurt something out of tone and ran away. He liked his friends, but he was still wary about other people. 

Mattsun, Makki and Iwaizumi made up for it. They would scare the gossip away, they would be as weirds as they were and as straight forward as they were without minding what other people thought about them, and protected Tooru with their warm personalities and their absolute acceptance of Tooru's traumas and problems. None of them tried to force Tooru to be something he was not (the incident with Iwaizumi thrown away in a forgotten basket) and after some weeks Tooru grew confident, and more open. 

He started to forget how panic felt like and when he tried to remember what was to feel like he didn't belong, he couldn't recall the feeling at all. The book with how to nourish his self-esteem fell forgotten in another basket, and while they studied and crossed the line of second year to third, Tooru started to find himself.

Outside the court, outside the safe walls of his house and the family that loved him unconditionally, Tooru discovered he could be those two persons in all sort of environments. Mattsun, Makki and Iwaizumi would call him out if he crossed a line, they would let him know when he stepped a boundary, but they would still be there the next morning, and the next, and the next. By the time they sat on the gym for the Inauguration of their third year, it felt like they had been friends since the beginning of times. 

"Dude, I'm gonna rip my eyes off and sell them in the black market," Matsukawa said in Hanamaki's ear.

"No one's gonna buy eyes that look like a drug addict's."

"I hate spring," Matsukawa growled.

"Don't we all."

Tooru loved spring, and so his lips were full of smiles and his eyes were safe and sound behind his glasses, as healthy as ever.

"Oi, Oikawa, stop being so happy. You are disgusting."

"Disgustingly cute. Why do you look so cute with glasses, dude? I think's unfair."

"It's like that american movie where the nerdy girl wears glasses and then she takes them off and she's a hottie."

"Isn't that like, all the american movies?"

"Oikawa is the protagonist of an american movie."

"You two, shut up," Iwaizumi shushed them from the front. 

"Sorry mom," they both said at the same time, and for some reason Tooru was also hit by the wave of Iwaizumi's hand.

"Why am I being hit too?"

"Because you look too cute with glasses," Iwaizumi was looking forward again and so he missed the shinning blush that took over Tooru's cheeks. The Crush hadn't disappeared on the last months of friendship. In fact, The Crush had evolved into A Love That Was Destroying Tooru Slowly And Deeply. He had been disappointed when he discovered last autumn that Iwaizumi wasn't the perfect human being he thought he was, but now that he actually knew how he really was, Tooru couldn't hide behind any wall anymore. Iwaizumi wasn't perfect _at all_ , but Tooru's feelings hadn't care one bit and had flew without a second thought towards him.

Gods, he was so screwed.

More, because while Iwaizumi plainly ignored Tooru's blush, Mattsun and Makki were smiling at him with those smirks full of malice Tooru knew too well by now. He was pretty sure the both of them had figured out how he felt about Iwaizumi the same time Tooru figured it out himself, but they had never talked about it. They just— did the Makki—Mattsun thing that spoke better than words could ever do. 

"Shut up, you two," Tooru had to hold himself when he heard them both laugh under their noses. 

 

"Are you gonna sign up for any club this term, Oikawa?"

They were eating lunch like they usually did, this time in Oikawa's and Mattsun's classroom. 

"I don't think so. I still have practice with the neighborhood team and my sister's about to have my niece, so…"

"Oikawa Tooru, The Magnificent Uncle," Matsukawa said while he ate his rice.

"Shut up! Are you never gonna forget it?"

"Never," he whispered and Tooru growled deep in his throat. 

"Man, you did have nice nicknames even when you sort of hated yourself," Hanamaki said, thoughtfully, and Tooru saw Matsukawa and Iwaizumi flinch and the worry behind their expressions made something weird and beautiful in Tooru's heart. 

"I have more," Hanamaki stopped eating, left his chopsticks down and looked at him as if Tooru had just said he had the key to paradise.

"Tell me."

"What kind of idiot do you think I am?" Tooru smirked and blinked behind his glasses. "Nothing's given for free in this life, Makki. You should know that by now."

"What do you want?"

"I'm not telling you," Tooru said and started to eat again while humming a song. Hanamaki gasped and made a weird sound that was sparingly close to a dead animal's cry. 

"It's like putting the bait and never let the fish taste it."

"Now you know in what world you belong," Matsukawa pointed out. 

Hanamaki didn't bother with a reply. "Come on, Oikawa. Share the intel. That's what friends are for."

"I might have hated myself but I'm still smarter than you."

Hanamaki grimaced, real now, and leaned back again. "Fair enough."

Tooru had to force himself to not smile when he saw the proud expression Iwaizumi was looking him with.

 

  
Time flew. Tooru was amazed by the speed it would disappear from his fingers. Spring gave way to summer and with summer solitude came to knock on his door. The volleyball team was going to have a training camp during almost two weeks, which meant Tooru was going to be left back home alone and bored.

It had been his choice, though, so he tried to not complain. Not much, anyway. 

"Do you wanna go practice a bit?" Iwaizumi said three days before vacation started. He was on the door of Tooru's classroom, his shoulder resting on the frame like he owned it. Tooru had to hold a sigh at how nice he looked there.

"Now?" Tooru said with a hoarsed voice. "I mean, don't you have practice, Captain?"

"It's Monday. We rest on Mondays."

"Then you should rest."

"Does that mean you don't wanna?"

Tooru wanted, oh how much he wanted. "I wanna," he said low and Iwaizumi nodded and headed out, so sure Tooru was following him he didn't even bother checking. Tooru was smiling when he reached Iwaizumi's side. "So, Iwa-chan, did you do your captain's homework?"

"What's that?" 

"Prepare the route and the exercises, what techniques to work on—" Tooru looked at him then and saw his usually tanned face getting paler by the minute. "Oh, so you haven't."

"No one told me I had to do that."

"Isn't it obvious?" Tooru asked with a frown. "Didn't your last captain do it?"

"How I'm supposed to know that? I just followed orders."

"Like a trained soldier," Tooru couldn't help the smile in his voice, what gained him a soft punch on his bicep. "Oh, Iwa-chan, I wasn't mocking you."

"You better not."

They got out of the building sharing a nice silence.

"Do you want me to help you organize it?" Iwaizumi looked at him with surprise. 

"What?"

"The regime for the training camp."

"You can do that?"

"I can do that."

"Please."

It was nice to hear The Crush asking so nicely, and so Tooru helped him. 

 

He had been twice before in Iwaizumi's house and it was a nice house. Iwaizumi's mom had been everything his son wasn't on the outside: she was open, sweet and gentle. She cared deeply for his son and she didn't mind one bit to extend that love to Iwaizumi's friends. In fact, Tooru had found she liked him a lot and they ended up bonding more than what he had expected they could ever do.

It had been Iwaizumi's mother who had made all the _Iwa-chans_ possible, really. After the first weeks, when the four of them were doing the dance of friendship, Tooru had spent too much time trying to find a nickname for Iwaizumi, but either they were too cheesy (with all The Crush issue and so) or they were too polite. It was hard to find the middle point and it hadn't been until he visited the Iwaizumi's household and met Iwaizumi's mother that he had finally found it. Tooru's arms had been hit several times every day for the length of two weeks until Iwaizumi gave up on the nickname. The truth was, Tooru had started to use it because the way Iwaizumi blushed every time he said it was just too endearing to not do so, but after a while it just became their thing. It was not a nickname anymore, it was a magic word, the kind that had had a meaning before but had acquired one completely different due to the emotions Tooru put on it every time he used it. 

When Tooru called Iwaizumi _Iwa-chan_ , he wasn't only calling his name, he was trying to express an overwhelming emotion he didn't know how to show any other way. 

"Tooru, how are you?" Iwaizumi's mother embraced him when he took off his shoes and got into the house.

"Good, good. How are you, Iwaizumi-san?"

"Perfectly fine! Are you here to study?"

"Ugh, yeah, sort of—"

"We have stuff to do, mom, we are going to my room."

"I will bring you two some pastries I bought in a minute."

"Thank you," Tooru said while Iwaizumi pushed him into his room. 

They settled down on the table in Iwaizumi's floor. Tooru took his notebook out and started to sketch a simple grid, writing the different exercises, regimes, and ideas about how Iwaizumi could organize their training camp. Tooru didn't really know the flaws in the volley team (it was one of those topics they didn't talk about; none of them would never invite Tooru to a match nor would Tooru try to go to one). 

"You should write down the most important flaws the team has right now. Receiving, serves, spikes… You are the captain, you must know," Tooru said while he offered the paper and the pencil to Iwaizumi. 

"I'm not—sure."

Tooru frowned, not really understanding. "About what?"

"About the specific flaws of each of them," he draw absently in the border of the page while he talked. "You would know, if you were the captain."

"What," Tooru was too surprised by the stupidity of the comment to avoid letting his laugh out. "Are you serious?"

"Yes," Iwaizumi growled, pissed off.

"Iwa-chan, you are an amazing captain."

"How would you know?" he growled again, his eyes focused on the curves the pencil was doing on the paper. "You never come see us play."

 _Here we go_ , Tooru thought with a bit of pain.

"You never ask," Tooru was being unfair and he knew it, but he was this kind of person and Iwaizumi had given him the freedom to be so.

"Because I know you don't wanna come!" he snapped, letting the pencil hard on the table and finally meeting Tooru's gaze. "I don't ask because you will say yes and come unwillingly, or you will say no and then what's the point?"

"What are you mad for?" Tooru asked softly. "That I don't wanna come see you play? Or that I don't wanna join the team?"

Iwaizumi's breath was loud, filling the room, the words unsaid; Tooru's lungs. 

"You are too good to be hidden on a side team like that one," Iwaizumi managed to say in a whisper full of rage.

"Maybe, but that has nothing to do with you."

"You could be pro, Oikawa! You have the ability, you _could_ do it!"

Tooru was calmly silent. "Your rage has nothing to do with me, you know it, right?"

"Agh!", Iwaizumi let himself fall in the ground, and just like he did when he visited Tooru into his house so long ago, he hid his face with his arms. "I am good, but you are great."

"You envy me?" Tooru asked softly, his heart in his throat and his soul in his eyes, but Iwaizumi could see neither because he was too focused on hiding his own. 

"Yeah, I guess I do. But it's not that," he sighed again between his arms. "It pains me to see you hiding; after all this time, you are still doing so and I just— I can't help but feel—"

Tooru wanted to tell Iwaizumi he was hiding the same way he was accusing Tooru of doing so, but he was not brave enough, and so he bit his lips and said nothing.

"I want you to be happy," Iwaizumi whispered after a while, his eyes far away from Tooru. 

"I am happy," Tooru said in return, because it was the absolute truth. "I don't know why you think otherwise. Do I seem sad to you? Do I hide from you? I might not treat volleyball the way you want me to treat it, but that doesn't mean it's not mine the same way it's yours. I've made my decisions, Iwa-chan. Maybe it's time you make yours."

Tooru stood and grabbed his things, Iwaizumi's face still covered by his arms, his chest raising faster with every breath he took. "I'm going; if you need more help with the regime, let me know."

They didn't speak again before summer vacation started, and after that Iwaizumi went away, and Tooru stayed without him and without Mattsun's and Makki's cheery company to make him forget he couldn't have it all. 

 

Tooru had created himself a routine that was secretly coded as Let's Try To Forget You Feel Lonely As Shit And That You Might Have Destroyed Your Friendship With Your One True Love. Tooru sucked at naming things, the same way he sucked at getting over his own life. 

The routine consisted in: waking up, eat ice-cream with Takeru, play volleyball with Takeru until it was time to eat lunch, take his sister for a walk to help the baby settle, come back, spend ten hours watching shitty movies and then falling asleep in a mess of: aliens, tears, popcorn and regret.

The only thing he could save from that misery of a life he had created was Takeru, and even Takeru fell into the _must be murdered_ column once in a while. 

He missed Iwaizumi terribly. 

And Mattsun, and Makki. It was not the same yearning feeling, but Tooru hadn't realized how attached he was to the three of them until they were not there and Tooru couldn't do anything to change it. They still texted Tooru in a regular basis, Mattsun and Makki joking like they always did, some times pointing out something specially funny or weird that had happened; like the time someone named Kunimi almost threw a phone out of a cliff because Makki had dared him to; or that other time Mattsun had gone to scare some of the first years and had ended up running back to the room he shared with Iwaizumi and Makki screaming like a baby. 

Iwaizumi barely texted, but Tooru thought there wasn't much space to do so with all the messages Matsukawa and Hanamaki were able to send in a single minute. 

It didn't keep Tooru from over thinking about their argument, or about the way The Crush had evolved into The One True Love to end up being The Big Disaster In Tooru's Life. Funny, how fast things could change. The worst part was, Tooru didn't regret any of the words he had said. There was this big pink monster between him and Iwaizumi none of them dared to confront face to face, but Tooru had grown tired of it; tired of the way Iwaizumi had of making him the victim, when he was not the victim anymore. He _didn't want_ to be the victim, because victims didn't have a choice, but Tooru did. Iwaizumi and Matsukawa and Hanamaki had gifted him that and it felt like a betrayal towards them to waste it. 

Maybe this was better, for everyone. Maybe it was time for Tooru to grow apart from Iwaizumi for a while, take care of his broken heart once again, and let time fill the space of The One True Love with something simpler, something easier. 

Tooru had to wonder if it was even possible to achieve such a thing now, when he was so far in the game. But.

"Tooru, if you go buy me the biggest strawberry ice-cream on the shop I will invite you to dinner three times next week," his sister came into his door, sweating to the hell that was summer. 

"Are you okay?" he asked, a bit worried by her red cheeks and the feverish look on her eyes.

"If you buy me that ice-cream, I will be in _paradise_."

"Gotcha. Don't do anything stupid while I'm out, sis."

The air was even warmer at night and Tooru had to hold a scream of pain at it. He hated summer and he hated the sticky feeling it left in his skin. The streets were empty and dark, the only sound around Tooru the soft engine of cars too far away to be bothered by it. He liked the way trees felt at night, how the smell changed a bit when the sun disappeared. 

Tooru almost ate a pole, because he was too focused with the cheesy feeling of a broken heart's loneliness to pay any attention to his surroundings. He went to the conbini and bought not one but three huge packs of ice cream, because he knew his sister. He walked back playing with his feet, one, the other just in front, following the white lines, following the kanjis on the asphalt. Tooru felt a bit overwhelmed in the warmth of his house, but his sister was waiting for her desert and so Tooru stopped playing and started to walk faster. 

That was when his phone rang, scaring the shit out of him. 

"What the—" Tooru almost dropped the damn thing while he tried to take it out of his pocket to see who was the devil that was calling him, and panicked for a second when he remembered his sister was pregnant and alone.

He almost dropped it again when he saw the ID caller. 

"Hello?" he said to the line, that stayed silent for long seconds.

"Hey," Iwaizumi's voice sounded huffed and tired from the other side. 

"Iwa-chan, are you okay? I think this is the first time you ever called me."

"Probably it is," Tooru heard him sigh deeply on the other side of the line. "Is it okay to talk now? It's pretty late—"

"It's perfectly fine; I'm coming back from the conbini anyway."

"Hungry at midnight?"

"My sister was craving ice cream."

"I see," Iwaizumi let the words fall, and so did Tooru. He liked their silences as much as he liked everything else; as long as he shared something with Iwaizumi, Tooru would be content. 

"How's camp?" Tooru asked after a bit. "Fun?"

"Exhausting."

Tooru heard himself laugh. "I can imagine," how long had it been since he had laughed? Since he had laughed with Iwaizumi? "How's the Captain holding it?"

"Barely."

"Well, Iwa-chan, you're full of words, aren't you," Tooru teased, but the small sigh in Iwaizumi's end let him know he had taken it more serious than what it really was. 

"Yeah, sorry— I shouldn't have called—"

"Don't be silly, I was kidding. I allow you to be The Monosyllabic Monster for today."

The silence this time was piercing.

"Is that one of those infamous nicknames you were talking about?" Tooru had to think if he wanted to give that kind of power to Iwaizumi.

But really, what a stupid question. Of course he wanted.

"…It might be," he said slowly. "It's not the worst of them."

"Yeah, Oikawa Tooru The Magnificent is quite difficult to overdo."

"You would be surprised."

"Tell me, then."

Tell him what, exactly? Tooru died to ask him: _what do you really want to know, Iwa-chan? What do you want from me? Do you know what I want from you?_

"Information must be earned, Iwa-chan," he said softly, because he had missed Iwaizumi so much it was a real pain in his chest and his throat. "If I give my secrets away that easily, what would that make me?"

"A trustful idiot?"

"None of which I am, for your information."

"You are a bit of an idiot sometimes, though."

"Oh, Iwa-chan; that's not how you earn information. In fact, I take it back; you can't be The Monosyllabic Monster anymore."

"Once is given you can't take it back, Oikawa; sucks for you."

Tooru had the feeling they weren't talking about nicknames anymore. 

"I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. If it was mine to begin with it's just fair I have absolute power over it."

"But you gave it freely," Iwaizumi's voice sounded huskier. "If you take it back now, it's just unfair for me."

Tooru had to take a second or two to manage a shaky breath.

"What are we talking about now, Iwa-chan?" he managed to ask, he didn't even know how.

"I miss you," Iwaizumi said instead of answering. 

After some seconds where Tooru was literally unable to speak, Iwaizumi kept going. "And I'm sorry for what happened at my place. You were right. You were right about everything, like always."

"I'm not always right," Tooru managed to blurt. "And I miss you too."

Tooru had stopped his walking at some point into their conversation, and now he let himself fall against a wall. He was shaking all over the place, his hands, his legs, his heart. It was pounding so loud he was surprised he could still hear Iwaizumi shifting on the other side of the call.

"Agh, what a mess! I didn't talk to you the last days of school and I just—. I have a lot I want to talk about, Oikawa. There's a lot we need to talk about."

"Were you mad?" Iwaizumi growled in his way of _what the heck_ , so Tooru elaborated. "Because of what I said; because I left without letting you say anything."

"I was mad," Iwaizumi sighed. "And hurt, I guess, but I think it was not because of you but more because—. I sort of failed to see your truth. I thought… well, you know how I thought about your volleyball, and I thought I knew what was best for you because I— I thought I was your protector when you were the target of those idiots; and then when we became friends I thought I had to keep helping you the best I could and I—", Iwaizumi breathed deeply. "I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize, Iwa-chan," Iwaizumi didn't answer and Tooru found himself letting his back follow all the way down the wall until he was sitting on the ground. He hugged his legs and hid his forehead against his knees. "Do you remember that day, in my room? When you thought I hated you? And I told you I didn't?"

"Yeah."

"I wasn't mad, Iwa-chan; I was hurt, because I thought you should have known how bad it felt for me but you didn't," Tooru felt his cheeks burn with heat and he was glad no one was around to see him. "Or I thought you didn't. I guess you were my protector for a while? But I don't want that from you. I never wanted that from you."

"What do you want from me, then," Tooru hugged himself harder and tried to find his voice, but it was just gone, like his bravery, like his strength. He was so nervous for a second there he feared he was going to die. 

"You know what I want, why do you force me to say everything out loud?" Tooru managed to say in a shy voice.

"I won't be sure if you don't tell me."

"What about you? No one knows what you really want, Iwa-chan."

"Oh, come on, Oikawa. We've all known it since the beginning of second year," Tooru found himself chuckling softly at Iwaizumi's frustrated words. 

"Well, well. So the knight actually had an agenda. How sneaky of you, Iwa-chan."

"Don't play around it, Oikawa, and answer me."

Tooru had to steal some more seconds of the summer air before he could answer.

"I want everything," he said, his breath burning his knees and his own heart until it turned into ashes. "I want all of it."

The ground was gone under Tooru for a second there, the time Iwaizumi needed to process Tooru's answer and build his own.

"Good, 'cause that's what I want too. What I've wanted for a while."

"You should have said something, you know; you should have—"

"I did! I've been saying all sort of shit to you for so long and you couldn't even start to see the beginning of it!" All those frustrated statements started to make sense, now that Tooru had another light to see them under. 

"Oh, I see."

"You see? Are you serious? I can't believe you! I've been throwing hints at you for almost a year! I feel defeated."

"Well, you see, it never got into my plans that The Crush would end up having A Crush on me, do you understand?"

Tooru realized too late he had talked without thinking, and by the time Iwaizumi chuckled on the other end, Tooru's cheeks had reached peeks so high of heat they could light the whole of Tokyo's area. 

"The hell, Oikawa. I can't believe you just called me The Crush."

"Get over it," Tooru growled, so ashamed he actually thought about never leaving the safety of his arms. Iwaizumi's laugh filled Tooru's ear then, and gods helped him, it was the nicest sound he had ever heard. "Iwa-chan~. Stop making fun of me."

"You make fun of yourself on your own. How long has this crush thing being on?"

"…A while."

"How long is a while?"

"A while is a while, Iwa-chan! Stop pushing the issue."

Iwaizumi stopped pushing the issue, and Tooru breathed, relieved. The silence was nice, when it settled, and Tooru couldn't hide his smile anymore. 

"Tooru," Iwaizumi said then, so softly Tooru almost missed it. "I really, _really_ miss you."

Tooru had the feeling Iwaizumi wanted to say something different, but he was content enough with that confession.

"At least you are occupied; I spend my days waiting for you guys to come back."

"Are you taking care of yourself?"

"I might… do so."

"I'm gonna kick your ass once I get back if you haven't, Oikawa, do you hear me?"

Tooru was too hyped up by all this surreal situation to control his own words.

"Is that the only thing you are gonna do to me once you get back, Iwa-chan?"

"You can bet that's not the only thing I'm gonna do to you."

"That sounded specially dirty," Tooru chuckled unable to help himself.

"Shut up, dumbass," he could almost feel Iwaizumi's blush from the other side of the call.

"Iwa-chan, come back soon. I miss you too… more than what you can imagine."

"Ugh, you are killing me."

Good, because he was killing Tooru too.

 

It wasn't that bad, after The Call. Tooru's sister had become Satan while he was away (it seemed he spent thirty minutes talking with Iwaizumi on the phone, but Tooru had to hold his tongue before telling his sister she should be grateful it had been that short). But besides that, everything sort of fell into place. Tooru counted the days until his friends were going to stay at camp with a new happiness attached to it. He took better care of himself and he took the regret out of his routine; as for the rest, it worked perfectly fine for the next ten days until Mattsun, Makki and Iwaizumi came back. 

Tooru was a mess of nerves when The Day arrived. He lost his glasses, _three_ times, the last finding them in his face. He couldn't do anything the right way, so he spent the day going around, annoying his sister, annoying Takeru, annoying even his mother, who had the most candid soul in the whole universe.

He wanted to see Iwaizumi so badly he could die, but he couldn't see Iwaizumi at all because _he would die_. His heart was pounding like crazy already and they haven't even _planned_ to meet. 

Tooru Was An Idiot, but what else was new. 

By the time night fell, Tooru felt like he had drank three liters worth of coffee. He had given up on sleeping by afternoon, so he tried to pick a documentary to keep his mind occupied but it was just not working. Okay, the aliens seemed real enough, and yes, that shadow on that window was specially tricky, but—

A knock in his _own_ window made him wreck like a person been murdered. He hugged the pillow so hard he lost it in his arms for a second, and when the knock sounded again, a bit _frustrated_ this time, Tooru didn't lose one more second. It could be an alien, after all.

Or even better, it could be Iwaizumi Hajime. 

"What are you doing here," he whispered when he saw Iwaizumi glaring at him from the other side of the window. 

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Climbing houses like a thief? Are you aware there's people living around my house?"

"Then let me in before someone sees me!" Iwaizumi's furious whisper was cute enough to earn him the entrance to Tooru's palace.

"Now really, what are you—"

"I just wanted to see you, okay?" Iwaizumi was adorable when he blushed and Tooru watched him in awe. "It has been like a month since we last spoke—"

"We spoke a lot when you were at camp, though," Tooru wasn't complaining; in fact he was so happy to see Iwaizumi here, in his room, at night after the longest hell a teenager could live, he was ecstatic. 

"If you want I can leave…" Iwaizumi said with a grumpy expression.

"What? No!" Tooru blushed too at the strength he had used to say that. "I mean, you took the trouble to come here—"

"You are an idiot."

Tooru gasped. "What the—"

"You are an idiot," Iwaizumi repeated while he got closer to Tooru. "And I've missed you so much I was barely holding it, okay? Are you happy now?"

"I was plenty happy before you said that, but now—" Tooru let his forehead fall against Iwaizumi's in a happy hum. "This is nice. Wanna see the documentary with me? It barely started."

"Uh, okay, sure."

They settled in Tooru's bed, so close Tooru could lay his head on Iwaizumi's shoulder while they watched the documentary grew grosser and scarier. By the time they reached half of it, Tooru had found an excuse to hold Iwaizumi's hand on his own and to press all his body against him. 

"What the hell is that shi—" Iwaizumi gasped and moved his head on reflex, trying to hide himself from the view in the computer's screen. Tooru had spent a summer vacation's worth of nights watching things worse than that, so he barely flinched and so he ended up so close to Iwaizumi's blank expression he could even count the freckles in his cheeks even in the dark.

"You have freckles, Iwa-chan," Tooru said, so softly it wasn't even a sound.

"Yeah," Iwaizumi swallowed and his eyes fell over Tooru's gaze until they meet his lips. "You are still disgustingly cute with your glasses."

It was as easy as breathing, Tooru found; he kissed Hajime or Hajime kissed him and it felt right, and it turned Tooru's inside in a pool of warmth. It was soft, because Tooru had no knowledge about what he was doing, and he assumed Iwaizumi, being who he was, would have a bit more of control over the matter.

He didn't push further, though. He lay back a bit and watched Tooru, maybe tried to figure him out, to see if he was fine with it.

Tooru was perfectly fine with it and so, since Iwaizumi seemed to lack the words to express his concerns, Tooru closed the distance again; and again, as easy as breathing, he was kissing Hajime, and it felt like home.

In reality it was a bit messy and not the best kiss they would have, not by far, but it was the first and it was nice because through those soft touches of their skin they were finally able to say what months of wrong words couldn't express. Tooru kissed Hajime with his need, and The Crush on his lips, and The One True Love on his tongue and the I Want It All in his hands when they found their way up Iwaizumi's neck. And Iwaizumi told him how much he had yearned for him, how much he had worried when he saw him falling over and over again; Hajime, with his mouth full of words unsaid and his hands, that were build to protect people, let Tooru know he was so wanted and so loved there wouldn't be any other words that could take that back. 

It wasn't the best of the kisses, but it was the first of many others, and because it was the beginning, they were the happier they could imagine themselves being.

It was the best of the beginnings.

**Author's Note:**

> Gods, I feel I spent more time preparing the doc to upload that writing it. Why do I love italics so much. 
> 
> Ps. If it wasn't clear enough by now, I'm IWAOI TRASH FOR LIFE.
> 
> Also, Iwa-chan with freckles has become my thing.
> 
> EDIT:  
> (I'm gonna leave my tumblr here in case anyone wants to reach out (ღ˘⌣˘ღ):  
> [The Tumblr](http://ellehletoile.tumblr.com)


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